


Solider

by birdcages7



Series: Tumblr Prompts/Shorts [11]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Mind Manipulation, Psychological Horror, Tentacle Monsters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:20:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26033317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/birdcages7/pseuds/birdcages7
Summary: The word kept Billy awake. Many things kept him away these past couple of days, but he could hear that word so clearly in the dark of his room. The world felt foggy and grey, a million miles away. Max and Neil and Susan. They were in the same building he was sure. Always were. But it didn’t feel like it. Didn’t feel like he was in his room, didn’t feel like he was on his bed with the top sheets kicked away. His brain was on fire. His skin was melting off his bones. Nothing was helping. Having the window cracked open only let in more humid Indiana air. It felt like he was sucking down soup.
Series: Tumblr Prompts/Shorts [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1785595
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	Solider

_ Soldier _ .

The word kept Billy awake. Many things kept him away these past couple of days, but he could hear that word so clearly in the dark of his room. The world felt foggy and grey, a million miles away. Max and Neil and Susan. They were in the same building he was sure. Always were. But it didn’t feel like it. Didn’t feel like he was in his room, didn’t feel like he was on his bed with the top sheets kicked away. His brain was on fire. His skin was melting off his bones. Nothing was helping. Having the window cracked open only let in more humid Indiana air. It felt like he was sucking down soup. 

Since the nightmare that had been the factory nothing had been the same. He still wasn’t entirely sure what exactly had happened. If it was real. It couldn’t have been real. But he didn’t know how to explain any of it otherwise. Maybe that psychotic break was finally happening.

_ Soldier _ .

Billy cracked open his eyes in the dark. It hurt. Everything hurt. He’d been in pain before, many times, but never anything like this. It was an all out assault. It felt like something was trying to take his brain apart and make a home inside. No amount of migraine pills stolen from Susan’s purse were even touching it. Trying to sleep it out wasn’t working. Not when he could feel every part of him sweating, making his hair heavy and the sheets cling to his body like an unwelcome guest. Maybe it was just a fever, that’s the theory he was running with. A weird midwestern summer flu he just wasn’t indoctrinated too just yet. Next year though he would be just fine, because it worked like chicken pox clearly. Come the morning he could pound down orange juice and just try to carry on. Don’t show weakness.

_ Soldier _ .

That word again. Clear as day and just as bold. Billy couldn’t move or be forced to deal with another shooting pain rocketing up his spine like a dog was trying to use it as a chew toy. He’d been on his belly all night, thinking that would help. He’d been suffering for days, he’d try anything at this point. His room was cast in shadows from the streetlight outside. He hadn’t the energy to close the drapes. Hadn’t the energy to do much of anything really, but had to keep going. Don’t show weakness. 

It was agony.

A shadow shifted on the other side of the room. Slithered out from behind the dartboard and merged into the shadows of the things on the mantle. Billy blinked. He couldn’t do much more. The fire in his brain spiked trying to focus on it again. Made him physically groan out into suffocating silence, forcing his eyes shut for just a moment to ride out the wave of discomfort.

**_Soldier_ ** .

The voice sounded louder. Impatient. Sweat beaded off the tip of Billy’s nose into the damp pillow below. He didn’t feel alone anymore. There was a new shadow in the corner of the room now, when he could open his eyes again. The fire twisted and ragged but he forced himself to look. Look at what seemed to be the shadow of a pile of laundry. That hadn’t been there before. There was no pile though. There was never a pile. That wasn’t allowed under Neil’s roof. Hadn’t been allowed since day one. Billy blinked at it. Blinking through pain and sweat and tears threatening to form at feeling so powerless to something beyond his control. It had been many years since he had felt this weak. Being powerless to Neil felt different.

_ We can help you. _

Billy wanted to talk back. Wanted to confront the voice in his head. Wanted to make this all go away. But it was just a fever. All he had to do was ride it out. He’d had fevers before, they were always worse before they got better. He’d take a cold shower in the morning, that might help. Keep to himself at work. He considered, for a small amount of time, calling in sick. He clearly was. But Neil. His wrath would be worse than any fever, no matter how genuine his pain was. It hurt to even breathe. Like his ribs were three short breaths away from cracking and collapsing inwards, shredding his lungs that were filled with thick air like feather pillows.

_ We can make the pain stop. _

God Billy wanted that. To just close his eyes and sleep. Not feel his pulse like a jackhammer cracking his skull apart. Not feel every single nerve ending crackle like lightening with every accidental movement no matter how small. Not feel pain all the way down to his toes and to the ends of his ringing hair. The energy it was taking to be awake, it felt like weeks since he had last slept. He was so tired. Was he always so tired? It was starting to feel like he always had been, in one way or another. Always having to keep one ear open for heavy footsteps in the hall.

_ We can make you strong  _ **_Soldier_ ** _. _

The shadow laundry moved. Inflated itself and swelled. Inched closer. Billy would have been scared by that usually, should have been, but his mind was foggy with increasing pain. Splintering with white noise. He wanted to scream but knew nothing would come out. He was going mad.

**_Let us help you Soldier._ **

Tears rolled down Billy’s cheeks, staring at a moving shadow that was creeping closer and closer. Growing tendrils, spindly and impossibly long like a horrific spider. Stretching out the entire length of his room. No. No this wasn’t happening. He wasn’t seeing this. He was just delirious with fever. A stupid midwestern fever. An invisible pile of laundry wasn’t inching closer to his bed he was pinned to with pain and sweat. He was just imagining it. He was imagining the voice too. The deep, scratchy voice that sounded barely human, like it was pieced together from other noises to impersonate speech. Like an alien would. None of this was real. Maybe the factory had been imagined too. Maybe that had been the start, he’d just blacked out and imagined it all. Somehow ended back at Cherry Lane.

But, god, he just wanted to sleep.

Billy blinked away tears and sweat as the shadow shrunk and slipped under his bed, disappeared from view like it had never been there. But he felt more frozen to the soaked mattress than ever before. As if pulled down and kept there, held tight by invisible ropes bound around his middle. He was exhausted. On the verge of breaking apart into a million pieces. The white noise behind his eyes turned spiky and sharp, stabbing and piercing. Stronger. There was only so much he could withstand. He was only human.

**Solider** .

He closed his eyes as a tendrel came from under the bed. Couldn’t stand the pain anymore. Couldn’t stand the delusions. And if whatever was happening, whatever was talking to him, whatever was making him delirious to the point of wanting to just pass out and have this all be over, then this  _ thing _ could do whatever it wanted. 

Billy was done.

One moment he was on fire. The next he was cool. Cold as ice but able to breathe again. The fire inside his brain was doused. The white noise and the fog remained, he still felt miles away from anyone and anything, but the pain was gone. Freezing cold honey was poured slow and sweet down his spine. It was bliss beyond compare. It was quiet too. He couldn’t hear his heart ringing in his ears or thrumming over his skull that didn't feel like it was going to crack apart like a dropped dish anymore. He could finally get some sleep.

**_Solider. Rest. We have work to do._ **

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr page.](https://bird-in-a-cage.tumblr.com/) Come ask me stuff! Headcannons more than welcome!


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